Howard Beale's producer in "Network,"of course ...
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/08/11/20090811brazil-tvkillings11-ON.html
Murder for ratings? Cops suspect TV host
Aug. 11, 2009 04:39 PM
Associated Press
SAO
PAULO, Brazil - In one murder after another, the “Canal Livre” crime TV
show had an uncanny knack for being first on the scene, gathering
graphic footage of the victim.
Too uncanny, say police, who are investigating the show's host,
state legislator Wallace Souza, on suspicion of commissioning at least
five of the murders to boost his ratings and prove his claim that
Brazil's Amazon region is awash in violent crime. Police also have
accused Souza of drug trafficking.
“The order to execute always came from the legislator and his son,
who then alerted the TV crews to get to the scene before the police,”
state police intelligence chief Thomaz Vasconcelos charged in an
interview with the Associated Press.
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The killings of competing drug traffickers, he said, “appear to have
been committed to get rid of his rivals and increase the audience of
the TV show.”
Souza denied all the criminal allegations and called them absurd,
insisting that he and his son are being set up by political enemies and
drug dealers sick of his two decades of relentless crime coverage on TV
and crusading legislative probes.
“I was the one who organized legislative inquiries into organized
crime, the prison system, corruption, drug trafficking by police, and
pedophilia,” Souza said in an interview with the AP.
Souza's lawyer, Francisco Balieiro, said that the only witness is a
disgraced police officer hoping for leniency in nine murders he is
charged with.
“There is not one piece of material proof in these accusations,”
Balieiro said. Vasconcelos said the accusations, which have made
headlines in Brazil, stem from the testimony of several former
employees and security guards who worked with the Souzas, allegedly as
part of a gang of former police officers involved in drug trafficking.
Souza's son, Rafael, has been jailed on charges of homicide, drug trafficking
and illegal gun possession.
Police said Wallace Souza faces charges of drug trafficking, gang
formation and weapons possession, but has not been charged with any
killings.
Souza remains free because of legislative immunity that prevents him
from being arrested as long as he is a lawmaker. He is being
investigated by a special task force, and state judicial authorities
will decide whether the case goes forward.
Vasconcelos said the crimes appear to have served the Souzas in two
ways: They eliminated drug-trafficking rivals, and they boosted ratings.
“We believe that they organized a kind of death squad to execute
rivals who disputed with them the drug trafficking business,” he said.
Souza, he charged, “would eliminate his rival and use the killing as a
news story for his program.”
Souza became a media personality after a career as a police officer
that ended in disgrace, according to Vasconcelos, who said the lawmaker
was fired for involvement in scams involving fuel theft and pension
fraud.
Souza denied those allegations, but said he was forced to leave the
force in 1987 after being wrongly accused of involvement in a college
entrance exam fraud scheme that he was investigating.
He started “Canal Livre” two years later on a local commercial
station in Manaus, the capital of Brazil's largely lawless Amazonas
state. It became extremely popular among Manaus' 1.7 million residents
before going off the air late last year as police intensified their
investigation.
The show featured Souza, in a studio, railing against rampant crime
in the state, punctuated with often exclusive footage of arrests, crime
scenes and drug seizures.
“When I became a police officer in 1979, bandits weren't raised in
this city — no way,” he told the audience in one show. Brazil was then
a dictatorship, whose police ruthlessly targeted criminals with little
concern for civil rights.
One clip showed a reporter approaching a freshly burned corpse,
covering his nose with his shirt and breezily remarking that “it smells
like barbecue.” Police say the victim was one of the five allegedly
murdered at Souza's behest.
Souza denied any role in that killing and explained how his
reporters manage to get so quickly to crime scenes, using well-placed
sources and constantly monitoring scanners for police radio dispatches.
The show also posted workers at police stations, and at the Manaus
morgue, where word often came first about newly discovered bodies.
“To say that a program that has had a huge audience for so many
years had to resort to killing people to increase this audience is
absolutely absurd,” Souza said.
Souza parlayed his TV fame into a career in the state legislature,
getting elected three times — twice with the most votes of any lawmaker
in the state. At the same time, he remained a fixture on television.
Souza's biography on the state legislature's Web site says the show,
which he ran with his brother, was investigative journalism aimed at
fighting crime and social injustice.
“The courageous brothers, as they're known, bring hope to the less
fortunate,” reads the description, “showing a naked and raw reality' to
call authorities' attention to social problems.”
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